Phar­rell Wil­liams

GIRL

Phar­rell Wil­liams has been every­where over the last 18 months. Hav­ing had a sig­nif­i­cant hand in two of 2013’s big­gest hits – Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” and Robin Thicke’s con­tro­ver­sial “Blurred Lines” – he’s back with his sec­ond solo out­ing. And, in­escapable as the song has been, there’s more to this al­bum than “Happy”. GIRL finds the nicest guy in mu­sic de­liv­er­ing an ef­fort­less set of highly pol­ished funk, soul and pop. It’s a feel-good af­fair and even when the lyrics move to the bed­room Wil­liams man­ages to avoid the misog­y­nis­tic over­tones that saw Thicke in hot wa­ter for “Blurred Lines” and its ac­com­pa­ny­ing video clip. Now, for the mil­lionth time, “Clap along if you feel…”